ABSTRACT
New technology is expanding the parameters of what information is shared-and needs to shared, with the public-and also recorded or archived for posterity. In February, 2010, White House attorneys said for example, that any “tweet” by President Barrack Obama’s press spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, would need to be archived along with e-mails and anything else that he produced in his job at the White House as part of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Gibbs had asked for the clarifi cation when he started using Twitter early in 2010. Th e attorneys further clarifi ed that unless someone responded directly to Gibbs, and only Gibbs-such online interaction should be regarded as analogous to sending e-mail to the White House.2
